HUD Player Experience

More and more human activities involve virtual environments. One specificity of these environments’ visual interfaces is that contextual information linked to the current action (head-up display or HUD) is superimposed on the main visual scene. The complexity of the interaction with virtual environments requires different kinds of cognitive resources from the user – and particularly attentional resources. Consequently, poorly designed HUDs generally cause users to misunderstand information and to make mistakes when using the system – hence, the experience the user has of the system (user experience) is poor. The main objective of the project is to understand how the composition and the spatial organization of the HUD on the screen affect user experience with typical virtual environments: video games.

Examples of HUD in video games:

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Minimalist HUD

(Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision, 2007)

Extensive HUD

(Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, Blizzard Entertainment, 2010)

Several studies are conducted to reach this objective. The goal of the first part of the project is to compare existing video game HUDs in terms of user experience (e.g., first-person shooters vs. real-time strategy games). The resulting observations indicate which HUD characteristics are determined in human-system interaction. The goal of the second part of the project is to understand more precisely how these characteristics affect user experience. Objective data (e.g., eye-tracking) and subjective data (e.g., questionnaires) are measured.

The results of this project will point out the importance of user-centered design of virtual environment visual interfaces for optimal user experience. More generally, they will give an insight into cognitive and emotional mechanisms involved in user-virtual environment interaction.

This project cannot exist without human volunteers to participate to these studies. Gamer or not, If you want to help, contact us: lcaroux@poly.edu

More and more human activities involve virtual environments. One specificity of these environments’ visual interfaces is that contextual information linked to the current action (head-up display or HUD) is superimposed on the main visual scene. The complexity of the interaction with virtual environments requires different kinds of cognitive resources from the user – and particularly attentional resources. Consequently, poorly designed HUDs generally cause users to misunderstand information and to make mistakes when using the system – hence, the experience the user has of the system (user experience) is poor. The main objective of the project is to understand how the composition and the spatial organization of the HUD on the screen affect user experience with typical virtual environments: video games.

Examples of HUD in video games:

*

*

Minimalist HUD

(Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Activision, 2007)

Extensive HUD

(Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, Blizzard Entertainment, 2010)

Several studies are conducted to reach this objective. The goal of the first part of the project is to compare existing video game HUDs in terms of user experience (e.g., first-person shooters vs. real-time strategy games). The resulting observations indicate which HUD characteristics are determined in human-system interaction. The goal of the second part of the project is to understand more precisely how these characteristics affect user experience. Objective data (e.g., eye-tracking) and subjective data (e.g., questionnaires) are measured.

The results of this project will point out the importance of user-centered design of virtual environment visual interfaces for optimal user experience. More generally, they will give an insight into cognitive and emotional mechanisms involved in user-virtual environment interaction.

This project cannot exist without human volunteers to participate in these studies. Gamer or not, If you want to help, contact us: lcaroux@poly.edu